Marking the two-year anniversary since being elected and faced with the worst opinion polls in French modern history, President François Hollande on Tuesday urged his countrymen to hold off on any judgment until the end of his mandate in 2017, reports FRANCE 24.
“I prefer making my decisions, assuming my responsibilities and then being judged on my results… The results will come,” he said during an interview with media group RMC and BFM TV. “I’ve asked to be judged at the end of my mandate.”
The 59-year-old French leader insisted that he would be “impatient, but not disappointed” if he was one of the people who had voted for him.
“My objective, my fight, was to put France back on track, because it wasn’t,” he said, suggesting there will be a noticeable change by the time his term comes to an end.
Questioned about his dwindling popularity -- having registered the worst popularity polls of any sitting French president of the Fifth Republic -- the leader urged voters to have more patience. He also partly blamed his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, for France’s current financial woes, saying the country “was on the verge of bankruptcy” when he finally took over the reins at the Elysée Palace.
“If I won in 2012, it was undoubtedly because my predecessor had failed,” he said. “What I have done, I have done for France.”
Asked about his decision to replace his former prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, with the more popular interior minister Manuel Valls in the aftermath of massive Socialist Party losses in March’s local elections, Hollande said,“I took action since the French say they want to see faster (change).”
The newly-promoted Valls, with his, “close-knit team”, should be able to “provide the necessary impetus to help us get there”. Hollande also welcomed the popularity of his new prime minister. “All the better. I wasn’t going to select someone who was perceived as unpopular or incompetent.”
Despite his failure to deliver on last year’s vow to reverse the country’s rising unemployment levels, Hollande insisted he had at least stabilized it.
Read more of this report from FRANCE 24.
Read Mediapart's analysis of President Hollande's first two years in office here.